


40 Days & 40 Nights

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Series: Tough to be Tender [3]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Butch/Femme, Crossdressing, F/F, Intersex, Lesbian Character, Original Character-centric, POV Alternating, POV First Person, POV Original Female Character, Stone Butch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-05 03:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20482424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: Azekah meets Marah.I been out in the desert / I have wandered on through the sands / I been burned, I been thirsty / I’ve walked with the devil through dangerous lands.Ben Caplan, “40 Days & 40 Nights”go ahead feel it / that unfamiliar / nothingness / where pulp and lust used to thriveAngela Moreno, “What dream?”And the places on her body have no names. / And she is what's immense about the night.Li-Young Lee, “Dwelling”...laugh for the sheer joy of being who we were, and being it together.Leslie Feinberg,Stone Butch Blues





	40 Days & 40 Nights

**Author's Note:**

> Marah - tribal who was kidnapped by the Legion as a child. her story shifts around but after escaping she either becomes a courier or joins the followers of the apocalypse, sometimes the first and then the second after the events of NV. intersex.
> 
> Aze(kah) - NCR soldier, saw terrible Legion things and deserted. stone butch.

To me you were the only woman in the room. In the corner you sat alone, drinking from the mouth of your own bottle. You clung to a gecko pelt around your shoulders and wore a headwrap over hair like white sage. My eyes found you and I had the urge to fetch you water for a bath. All the conversations in the bar faded away. The saxophones went silent and the blue-grey cloud of cigarette smoke cleared.

I spat out my toothpick and approached you like a vaquero with a wild horse, but you held your face in your hands and let out a deep sigh when I offered you a drink. _Just whiskey for you? When's the last time you had a cocktail?_ I saw you clearly - the dry skin of your knuckles, the blisters on the sides of your fingers, the scar over your thumb - and dreamed of kissing those hands, of seeing your wrinkles soften. I cleared my throat and asked you to dance. When you realized I was also a woman, you smiled at me, slow and subtle, like light welling in the sky after a thunderstorm. I believed I had entered heaven alive.

You stood up and I held you. New women give me old anxiety, but I wasn’t aware of my curves, only yours. The weight of your pelvis against my thigh, the purse of your lips against my ear, and the arousal that overcame my fear - I felt power in my body as long as you were close to me. You squeezed my knee and said, _You wanna come upstairs with me, honey?_ I muttered a _Yes, m’am._ I wasn’t trying to lower my voice anymore. Your laugh was deep and dark and sweet. I could drink it, be restored by it after forty days in the desert. I didn’t even tense at being touched near my crotch, and you recognized the signs that told you not to move your hand any higher. I can’t change the way that I am, and you knew not to try, but that night the smell of your inner thighs made me feel so warm that it almost melted my stone. I felt like a woman with you. I felt like Azekah, not the NCR deserter with four caps to her name, but the strong woman who could carry you into bed.

In the dark I laid there with my trousers around my ankles. As the candles went out, so did you. I tucked my rubber away, buckled my belt, adjusted my holster. That was the moment in which we could have forgotten each other - and then I saw your yellow plaid headwrap on the floor. Into the light and music I returned, looking for your face in every woman. I had a duty to return it to you. And I had to dance with you again.

/ / /

In the desert you were Kah, the one-syllable man. I watched you stoke the fire, watched the shadows move like dark fish on the gleaming surface of your broad shoulders and wide neck. Your forehead was damp with sweat and I wanted to rest it between my breasts, to smooth down your black curls and kiss away the fever of war. Have you seen the ocean? I have, in you. I wanted to protect you, in a different way than you protected me. I turned my gaze from the swell under your man’s shirt and towards the muscles of your legs, shapely in your breeches. From my flask I poured you a drink into a tin can, the only cup I had. Our fingers touched when I handed you the tin and that faint brush of contact took my breath away.

Even though they had been inside me I became aware of my pulse thundering through my body like a chant echoing against cave walls. You trusted me enough to unbind your chest when we slept in the same bedroll. With wine-wet lips we stumbled into the tent, unbuttoning my hundred year old dress. You were an artisan when it came to your rubber piece and equally talented making use of the tools you were born with. I was aroused by the sight of your hands, knowing how many women you had undone, how far you could take me.

Of course there were lies between us but the friction against wet heat - I wanted it to be real every time. You understood the fear, the visions of girls prettier than me and of men that have visited me in the night. As untouchable women we desired each other nonetheless. We found peace in each other, and when I reached for the firm bulge of your small wooden baton in its rubber sheath, tears pricked my eyes. You touched my cheek and in a hushed voice told me, _I want to make you feel good,_ and I whimpered, _You have to be gentle,_ as if I had never had a lover before. At times touch could hurt; then it gave me pleasure; sometimes both.

Before we made camp, you had seen me squat and wet the sand in urine-blood. And I had seen your face when you realized. The wheels turned in those intelligent brown eyes and I saw not a flicker of disgust or hate, but something far stranger, expanding in your pupils until I could only see that black center reflecting mine. When I took a deep breath my stomach rose like the mound of dirt over my grave. There were secrets deeper than my flesh. Then you kissed me, and kissed me, and kissed me. I had to see your face, that face, again. You brought me a comfort so tender that it hurt worse than cruelty.

In the post-coital haze you said, _You're after someone, aren't you?_ I went still. _Yes._ The bridge of your nose pressed to my neck. _Who is he?_ More sharply than intended I said, _There are a lot of men I have to kill._ Twice the moon waned and waxed in our time together. I knew of fish and you of horses, and we could travel together, teach each other our ways. I wanted to accept when I heard, _Let me help you._ But, _I have to do this alone._

_I’ll see you again, won’t I?_


End file.
